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Questions a year after Aussie's murder

Peter Mitchell

A year ago Australian baseballer Chris Lane was jogging along a Duncan, Oklahoma, residential street when a bullet was fired into his back, collapsing both lungs, fracturing two ribs, and tearing through his aorta and pulmonary artery.

The fit 22-year-old, beloved for his happy-go-lucky nature and desire to help others, fell to the ground, his back covered in blood.

He struggled for breath.

The release of the 911 phone call made by Duncan resident Joyce Smith, who was driving along Country Club Road in her Toyota Corolla on that hot afternoon of August 16, 2013, gives a haunting seven-minute window into Lane's last moments.

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Smith and another local, painter Richard Rhoades, tried to keep Lane alive until the ambulance arrived, but the bullet had caused too much damage.

Lane's life was lost.

The damage of that one bullet has spread across two continents, with the tremors so strong the White House commented on the case.

In Melbourne, Lane's parents Peter and Donna and his teammates at the Essendon Baseball Club were devastated.

In Duncan, Lane's girlfriend Sarah Harper never had the chance to say goodbye to the good-looking Aussie she planned to spend the rest of her life with.

Lane was visiting Harper at her Duncan home before heading back to Oklahoma's East Central University where he had a baseball scholarship.

Duncan, a rural city with a population of just over 23,000, was also left heartbroken by Lane's violent death.

Two other young lives hang in the balance.

The alleged shooter of the .22 calibre revolver, 17-year-old Duncan local Chancey Luna, and the alleged driver, 18-year-old Michael Jones, face life in prison if convicted of first degree murder at trials scheduled for April.

"It's heartbreaking," Luna's mother, Jennifer, told AAP on Thursday.

"I miss my son so much, but I know Chris's parents miss him, too.

"I pray that they are doing OK and I'm so sorry it happened to their son."

A third teenager, 16-year-old James Edwards Jr, has agreed to be a prosecution witness and was charged as a juvenile with a count of accessory to murder after the fact.

Despite a preliminary hearing for Luna and Jones, where Edwards Jr testified, many questions remain unanswered in the killing of Lane.

In the days after Lane's death, Duncan Police Chief Dan Ford said Jones told investigators the trio randomly targeted Lane for execution "for the fun of it" and because they were "bored".

This was never mentioned at the preliminary hearing.

There's also the question of the identity of a fourth person police said was with Jones, Luna and Edwards Jr when they were arrested in a church car park on the night of the killing.

According to a probable cause affidavit filed a day after Lane's death, officer Ryan Atkinson was called to the Immanuel Baptist Church parking lot and observed "Jones and three other males outside of Jones car".

"Later all four persons were transported to the Duncan Police Department for interviews," detective John Byers wrote in the affidavit.

A gag order prevents prosecutors, lawyers and authorities involved in the case from discussing the matter outside of court.

Duncan locals, not banned from speaking out, have plenty of theories, with some claiming the person who pulled the trigger was not one of the three boys arrested.

"He is walking around Duncan boasting he killed Christopher Lane," said the local, who asked not to be named.

Before the gag order, in an interview with AAP on August 26 last year, Det Byers downplayed the role of the mystery fourth person, saying he "was released back to his parents".

"It was a juvenile who we knew wasn't involved," Det Byers said.

"We obtained some video from the courthouse and from some other places and some actual eye witnesses that actually saw them at another intersection and spoke to them directly."